Occasionally we are presented with two features that we need implemented in our application. Which one do we do first?

The easy option is to do the simplest feature, or the one that will take the least amount of time to complete. However sometimes that goes against the goals of the business. It’s tempting to do the easy stuff. It ticks an item off a list. Moves a Trello card from one list to another.

There are some businesses that have no real goals. No idea who they’re targeting. What features their customers really need next. This lack of clarity makes prioritisation harder. If the goal is to create more signups then working on the easy feature to do with simplifying search results is not as important as making the sign up form clear and easy to use across all devices.

Mark Zuckerberg famously had growth as the big headline goal for Facebook in the early years. If the backlog feature wasn’t going to have a measurable impact on user growth it was shelved. Not a priority.

Feature prioritisation should be closely linked to business outcomes and objectives. Not how easy or quick it is to build.